Oconee Report 11/20 11/21 11/22

Fishing has been tough. Know through the grapevine several excellent fisherman that have went and had very little success as well. They were spider rigging and long lining. It didn't matter. Catches of 5-12 have been the norm as of late. I went one of these days and caught around 30 and kept 12. Kept on the move to try to target bigger fish, just could not get on them except one spot for a very short period of time.You can catch alot of little ones like 7 or 8 inch fish. Maybe this next cold snap will wake the big ones back up and cause them to move back up. Ramp at Long Shoals still fine to use. Water temp 58-62 depending where you are at. May try it on Friday or Saturday, will report back if I go. HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!

Thanks for the report. Was tough on us last weekend. Finished 11th with 9.72 lbs (7 fish). We did catch 30-40 fish all together but only 20 over a pound. Took over 10.2 lbs to be in top 8! Found our fish scattered on brush piles single pole jigging. Couldn't get bit spider rigging. Others in the top 8 were spiderrigging, but seemed to all have a specific target and were more or less tightlinning. Some good fish still up shallow too. Think the mouth of Sugar put out the better fish. Good luck and Happy Thanks Givining to all.

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Here are a few we kept to fry!

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That's a good report CT. Thanks for sharing.Thumbs Up

thanks for the report.i was wondering where r these brush piles i hear everyone talking about i have been all over suger creek and the only brush i have found is in front of a few docks in the cove by the island.but thwith water down like it is its only 3 or 4 feet deep. and i usually only get a few dinks out of them.any help would be greatly appreciated

I have found a few brushpiles in the stump fields but never caught any fish on them. I got to get this longlining and spider rigging figured out sometime. I got the general idea but knowing where to spider rig is my problem. Think after Christmas I am going to create my own brushpiles. My wife and I just bought a 9ft Christmas tree and I have several other family members with live trees that I plan on creating my secret brush pile with. HAHA. I even talked the wife into letting me hang a few Jiffy Jigs on ours as ornaments for good luck. LOL

Making your own is always a good idea. The more spots you have the better. Stagger them at different depths for different time of the year too. Add some bamboo to those trees. Takes time and work but well worth it.

I usually find most of the brushpiles I fish by longlinning or pushing and marking them to come back to later. You can really speed up the search with side scan but I haven't got that toy yet. Come on Santa!


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If you was going to create some homemade brushpiles for the spring kickoff where would you place them? Like how deep of water? In the flats in 5-10ft of water close to the banks or out in 15-20ft of water? Close to a drop off? I want to try and fix me up my own honey hole on oconee so I can fish it during the spawn with a cork, hook and minnow.
Also thought about trying to sink some xmas trees vertically. A friend of mine drills a hole through the side of the tree trunk and slides a cement block over the trunk and sticks a piece of rebar through the hole in the trunk and bends it so the block stays on the tree. Then when you sink it the heavy block should go to bottom and keep the tree upright.

I am amazed at how early the Oconee fish go shallow. I wouldn't wait till spring or you will miss the best chance at big Oconee slabs. As for how deep, yes the flats close the back of the creeks in 5-10 FOW would be great places to put some bushy type structure. Either run a line of them or a large V shape. Easier to spiderrig or cork fish that way. Moss Back Fish Rack makes some really good 5' long attractors and they are harder for other folks to find on their depth finders too!!

Whenever you get your bruch ready to sink just let me know and i'll go with ya to show ya where they need to go!!!

Yeah I plan to start my fishing down there really hard starting towards the end of January. I have always heard the fish start spawning in Febuary sometime at oconee. Wonder why so early? A lot of other lakes its March and April.

Mtnman early January is good too. Last year early January I caught 10 fish, two of which were a shade over 2lbs and the rest were over 1 1/4. Jan. Feb are hawg months on Oconee for those who will brave the COLD. Folks if you wait to late Feb and early March you have missed a many a slab crappie. If you go to Home and go under media then crappie you will see pictures from Doug Nelms with Ski Mask and Suits with a woman and her kid holding up a big slab crappie with boga grips. This picture if I remember correctly was in early January. We were fishing around that time. By the way Doug Nelms is my mentor on spider rigging, he is an excellent guide on Oconee. During these months I will be spider rigging ever so sloooooooooowly!

PS the guy holding the crappie up with the zoom cap on with scales reading at 2lbs 4 ounces is yours truly. This was caught in early March